Now that everyone's talking about those racist newsletters Ron Paul sent around in the 1990's, people are starting to wonder if perhaps the guy who sounds like he has a lot of negative thoughts about black people might be a little bit racist. Not true, says a former longtime staffer of the Presidential candidate; Ron Paul isn't racist, but he does want Israel to stop existing and can't stand it when people speak Spanish. Also there's the one time he wouldn't shake a gay guy's hand, because of the gay germs. See? Not a racist at all.

The moderately disgruntled former staffer, Eric Dondero, wrote to set the record straight about his former employer's growing reputation as a kooky cranky paranoid racist. He's hired black people to work on the campaign! He's got tons of Mexican friends! He even befriended some Jews and gays in his quest to get elected to public office. A regular Nelson Mandela, this one!

But, wait! A caveat, says Dondero. While Paul isn't racist, he is pretty uncool. He doesn't know much about black people things like rap music and basketball, and he certainly doesn't know much about Mexican things like Spanish. Actually, when people speak Spanish around him, it's sort of one of his pet peeves. This is America, and in America we talk American, not Mexican. But seriously, he's not racist.

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He's not anti-Jewish, either. Dondero swears he never heard anything anti-Semitic come out of his ex-boss's mouth, not once. I mean, he does believe that the country of Israel shouldn't exist, which isn't necessarily anti-Semitic per se, but might raise some eyebrows. He, uh, also sort of kind of thinks that America shouldn't have intervened in World War II,

For example, he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII. He expressed to me countless times, that "saving the Jews," was absolutely none of our business. When pressed, he often times brings up conspiracy theories like FDR knew about the attacks of Pearl Harbor weeks before hand, or that WWII was just "blowback," for Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy errors, and such

A man who A- thinks that American intervention in WWII was about "saving the Jews" and B- thinks that ending genocide isn't reason enough for international intervention couldn't possibly be anti-Jewish.

But the creamy weirdicing on the Ron Paulcake comes from Dondero's report that in the late 1980's, the politician refused to shake the hand of a "flamboyantly" gay supporter. While they were visiting the totally homo dude's house, Paul pulled Dondero aside and asked him for an excuse to go to a fast food restaurant so he wouldn't have to use the gay man's icky gay bathroom. Several years later, Paul refused to shake the hand of a gay supporter, upsetting some of his staff. But Ron Paul isn't anti gay! He's just uncomfortable with people acting all gay around him. He's not "homo-phobic," just "unsettled by being around gays personally."

Besides the fact that Dondero and I seem to disagree on what racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-gay bigotry are, he does make some good points. Voters shouldn't focus on the two-decades-old typewriter rantings of a guy who gives off a strong "stacks of newspapers lining edge of garage" vibe; they should instead focus on what the real implications of a Ron Paul presidency would be. According to Dondero, Paul's foreign policy positions would endanger American interests and lead to an isolationism that just wouldn't work. I disagree. His foreign policy isn't doomed to "failure," just "non-success personally caused by Ron Paul." There's a big difference.